Looking For Gsm Repeater

[SpaceKadet]

The location of my house appears to be in a black hole for GSM communications. I am not very far from the nearest mast, but obstacles or interference reduce the signal to almost zero. This is true for both DTAC and AIS. I get zero to one bar on any of the modern phones inside and outside the house. The only phone that works somewhat better is my old Nokia 6610. I get two bars on this one. The signal improves if I move just couple of meters out of my property onto the road outside.

So now I'm looking for a dual band GSM repeater. Has anybody seen them available anywhere in Bangkok, and if so, any idea of the prices?

[MichaelJohn]

There's plenty of shops in Pantip Plaza selling such equipment.

Several on line too e.g. http://www.hispeedaircard.com/ who offer aerials and boosters - never tried but saved the link from previous topics on this forum..

[SpaceKadet]

Thanks for the link Michael, they have what I am looking for. Looks like they have a shop in Pantip too. I'll give them a call.

[Pib]

One thing about repeaters, they usually cut the communications rate in half since they must spend half their time talking/relaying to mast/tower and the other half talking/relaying to the cell phone/aircard. This shouldn't affect voice quality too much, but if using your cell phone/aircard for internet access expect your download/upload speeds to be cut in half....normally with GSM/Edge+ you can get a maximun data transfer of 384Kb (in the perfect world) but in the real world it's going to be more around 150Kb to 200Kb. So, a repeater would be cutting these data rates in half. Of course, you're not getting any signal/rate now, so half is better than nothing.

[SpaceKadet]

This is for voice only so won't be a problem. But thanks for the info, I wasn't aware of that. For data communication the setup would be easier. As this would be a stationary installation, 18dbI Yagi or a 20+ dBi dish connected to a modem would probably solve the problem. I am looking at various wireless internet solutions as neither TOT nor 3BB can connect a cable to my house. GPRS will not cut it and 3G is not fully deployed yet in the boonies, unless True_H claims of coverage along the major highways is true I have 10km to highway 4, pretty much unobstructed line of sight. Time to do some experiments when I get home next week.